What if EMP, Cloacking, Stealing, Armour were not ships devices but tactics ?
Providing you have researched the new "Tactics and Strategies" branch and built the right amount of military academies, you could select on the mission page the way your fleet will fight.
The tactic you choose will affect your ships initiative, armour, damage with + or -
1. Cloacking : trying to hide your numbers by specific fleets formations putting the pods at the front... making your ships more vulnerable however. Initiative +, Armour -, Damage =

2. EMP : special manoeuvers enabling you to approach the enemy fleets at dead angles from their weapons with the penalty of your own weapons being much less effective.
Initiative +, Armour =, Damage -

The goal ? each ship (and race) can be either emp, cloack, steal or armour at will. Hopefully opening more tactic options and bringing more fun o the game.
Not sure if it would be more fun to have the capacity to order a change of tactics after launch (with some kind of penalty...).
Military academies would determine the value of ships you can command with these tactics.
Each race may start with a tactic already learnt... or not.

Radical change you suggest there. IŽll give it some more thoughts the next days when I find more time (am about to go to bed right now), but one thing I wonder about is if it wouldnŽt turn the game pretty much into a gamble when it comes to fighting: how to determine the targets fleet tactics? IŽm just against overly random events in a tactical game - they tend to be pretty frustrating for the players.

...but one thing I wonder about is if it wouldnŽt turn the game pretty much into a gamble when it comes to fighting: how to determine the targets fleet tactics?...

Option:
Tactics are set on fleet slots (and base) and need 4 ticks to change.
You can use a scan to see the fleet tactics.
OFC the target can change it's tactic until eta 4 meaning you will have to scan at least twice to be sure: end of eta4, end of eta1.

With that option I suggest the attack fleet can change it's orders too, up to eta4.
Yes there is a "paper - scissors" aspect, is that bad or 'realistic' ?
That will benefit the active players who can play and change tactics / scans closer to the tick. It gives them an edge over the casual players who set their fleets in prelaunch and just come online before landing to check the alliance scans.

So it'd turn into a sort of 12 hour rock, scissor, paper game?
Since if Race A choses tactic B, you as Race B should select tactic A.
I'd much rather open for ships to just have ability to do chosen types of damage first.

Personally I like the idea of making people choose between capping roids and killing structures, preferably using a sliding scale.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

Not necessarily. You could simply say that if you want to destroy 10% of your target's structures, you won't cap anything. Destroy 5% and you cap half of maxcap, etc.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.